Kensington, Tori

English

Digital Commons @ Butler University

1332 North Illinoisby Tori Kensington/My gait grates against the norm. Now mobile, my now noble gift from theVeteran's Administration'sability to formulate forms, makes me able to carry myclothes to the laundromat alone, unaided and unwheeled. Rehabilitated at last,my mobility shows my agility: to make leather sinews and chromium bonesarticulate the bandage flesh toned polyurethane hide to caper and dance as a rustywind-up toy soldier: not like a Fred Astaire, but like those we avoid seeing as theywalk, wishing rather, that they would return to the chair and be wheeled, notwheeling with swaying pelvises defying gravity and the terrazzo.Now the toe of my right shoe points straight ahead, and seems afraid to reachthe floor before my heel, as if the ghost of the would-be occupant remembers theshock of separation, and was afraid of the lonely flight across the sky of PenomPhen, so gallantly streaming, purple-hearted by a carnivorous claymore.Brilliant it is at night, as it stands alone: a fray of sinuous straps at the hipshowing more grace by itself than when it is attached to me who pilots it. Itpilotsme, rather. It walks me away from dances with pretty women, swimming pools,escalators and the society my doctor assured me I could rejoin.The standardized flesh color mocks the other, and I like Gloucester muststumble with the truth. There is no Edgar or daemon to help me with my self-pitying fall. And if I see the laundromat linoleum come dashing towards me, likethe truth of my strapped on sickroom as it fails in the illusion of locomotion, I'llmeet it again with palms outstretched, without an ass or salvation.68

1332 N. Illinois

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3717&amp;context=manuscripts

1332 N. Illinois

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